Breaking down barriers: Pre-apprenticeship program works to open doors to skilled trades union jobs

Marquez Goins returned to Detroit a year ago this week after a nine-year prison sentence for armed robbery when he was 18, not sure how he was going to find a job to support his three children.

"That was probably the hardest step — application after application, no callbacks," said Goins, 27. "I'm doing follow-ups, still not getting anything."

After two months of a fruitless job search, Goins' parole agent put him touch with Dino Vann, a 34-year-old union ironworker from the city's west side who also spent time in prison.

Vann runs a pre-apprenticeship program that seeks to solve one of the most vexing challenges of Detroit's turnaround after decades of economic decline: putting Detroiters to work in the well-paying skilled trades construction jobs rebuilding their city.

He's also trying to open doors for African American Detroiters to get a foothold into skilled trades unions that have traditionally relied on a friends-and-family recruitment model.

The free apprenticeship test preparation course Vann teaches is largely a response to complaints from contractors working on construction of the new Little Caesars Arena that they couldn't find qualified city residents to fulfill a requirement that Detroiters perform 51 percent of the work hours.

Through April, the city had fined contractors $2.9 million for not meeting the minimum local labor requirement. Of the 1.8 million hours worked on the project, Detroiters were working just 27 percent of time, according to a city report.

Goins completed Vann's program at the end of December and by March he was working as an apprentice for B&A Structural Steel LLC, while attending the Ironworkers Local 25's training school in Wixom.

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Nick Hagen for Crain’s

Marquez Goins, 27, got out of prison a year ago and is now working as an ironworker apprentice at B&A Structural Steel LLC.

After two months of working on steel construction and reinforcement at schools, a hotel in Livonia and the downtown Detroit arena project, Goins was making $18-an-hour plus benefits.

Earning double the state minimum wage is not what Goins predicted for his employment prospects when he was released from prison two days after Labor Day last year, after spending most of his adult years behind bars.

"It was a huge break for me," Goins said.

In the past 15 months, Vann's Skilled Trades Enrollment Assistant Program (STEAP) has had 18 graduates pass the ironworkers apprenticeship exam and five graduates accepted into an electricians apprenticeship program.

"We build them into an all-around, qualified, employable worker so (contractors) can't have any excuses for not hiring our guys," said Vann, who has spent the past two years working on the arena project for Midwest Steel.

Finding workers

As Detroit and the region experience a resurgence in new construction and rehabilitation, skilled trades labor unions and unionized construction companies have scrambled in recent years to find qualified workers.

That has led to a renewed emphasis on skilled trades as a career path.

With a capacity of 700 students, Randolph's enrollment had fallen below 100 students in recent years.

Mayor Mike Duggan's administration and several Detroit business leaders have recently stepped in to revitalize the program with a $10 million investment in the school's facilities and programming, which will be expanded to adult classes at night.

"There's a business case to do it," said Frank Woods, president of the Detroit Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. "Now that the city is really taking off, they see that in order for them to continue to sustain what they have here, they need to make sure they have the workforce."

Vann is trying to create a pipeline into predominantly white skilled trades unions that African American men like himself have not always had.

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Nick Hagen for Crain’s

Dino Vann is a 34-year-old ironworker who teaches the apprenticeship preparation classes.

"A lot of people have no clue about the skilled trades unions," he said. "They don't know about the money in it, the opportunity in it — they don't know nothing."

Though small in numbers, Vann's program does what the labor union often struggles to do, said Dennis Aguirre, president of Iron Workers Local 25.

"We've done a poor job marketing ourselves to the public," Aguirre said. "That's where these programs like Dino's helps us out in marketing the skilled trades and getting our word out there."

Before ground was broken in September 2014 on Little Caesars Arena, just 61 of the 1,500 members of Iron Workers Local 25 were from Detroit. As the massive project comes to an end, Local 25's ranks have increased to 1,700 and the number of Detroiters has inched up to 85, Aguirre said.

Aguirre, a third-generation ironworker, acknowledges the reality that today's growing labor shortage is partly a result of skilled trades unions tending to be insular organizations.

"It's always been family and friends who know what we do and we've always relied on that," Aguirre said. "We need more than just the sons of ironworkers, the cousins of ironworkers. We need more guys. We need people."

Prepared for test

During his weekly classes inside a classroom in the former St. Cecilia Catholic school on the city's west side, Vann toggles between a tutorial on workplace soft skills to using a chalkboard to make the recruits work through the type of math problems they'll face on a job site.

"You've got to understand fractions," Vann told a group of 20 students on a recent Friday night. "... That's the core of iron work — it's fractions."

Scoring high on the apprenticeship entrance exam is more important than simply passing.

The Iron Workers Local 25 Training Center in Wixom starts a new class of apprentices starts every six to eight weeks, choosing from a pool of applicants with the 25 highest test scores, said Kevin McDonell, training coordinator for Local 25's apprenticeship program.

Vann's STEAP graduates are more prepared for the test than others, McDonell said.

"He has prepped a lot of his guys so they have the confidence to take the test," McDonell said. "They're scoring real well. They usually score in the top 25 or even top 10."

As the region has experienced an increase in new construction, the ironworkers' four-year apprenticeship program has grown from 93 apprentices in 2012 to 314 today, McDonell said.

Life after prison

Vann recruits most of the prospects for his pre-apprenticeship program through Better Man Outreach, a mentoring organization for adult men in Detroit, many of whom who have had run-ins with the law in their youth.

Vann himself served two stints in prison.

In February 2015, he got out of prison after a two-year sentence for resisting arrest of a police officer. He served a prior sentence for dealing drugs in his early 20s.

Before the second stint in prison, Vann had passed the ironworkers apprenticeship exam. When he got out, a spot in the union was still there for him.

He immediately went back to work, spending most of his time at the Little Caesars Arena project.

Vann now leads a busy life, working overtime most weeks, raising five children at home and teaching his pre-apprenticeship class three nights a week.

"There's no way you could work my hours and still be out on the streets," Vann said. "I know if there's one of me, there's got to be thousands."

In June 2016, the first graduate of Vann's program was 49-year-old Lionel Williams, who spent 16 years in prison for committing armed robbery as a teenager.

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Nick Hagen for Crain’s

Lionel Williams is a 49-year-old Detroiter and ironworker who graduated from the Skilled Trades Enrollment Assistant Program (STEAP) in June 2016.

After getting out of prison, Williams put himself through college and eventually graduated with a engineering degree from Michigan Technological University in 2012.

But a college education didn't erase the criminal background record on job applications, Williams said.

"Tons of rejections," he said.

Two years ago, Williams moved back to Detroit and decided to use his math skills to get a skilled trades job.

Williams said he scored well on an electrician apprenticeship test, but not well enough to get accepted into that program.

Then he tried to carpenters union. After passing that test and getting a union card, Williams said he found it difficult to find work through contractors.

"When I tried to get into the trades on my own, I would hit a brick wall," he said.

After passing the entrance exam and drug test, Williams said he found the Iron Workers union cared less about a crime he committed in the late 1980s and more about his work ethic and ability to solve problems from a steel beam in the air.

"There's no background checks. There's no human resources. There's the union," Williams said. "When I could just get in and prove to them the type of person I am, I was fine."